


Seven Nation Army

by Unda



Series: It's the end of the world as we know it [17]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Horror, Eye Trauma, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Imprisonment, Mind Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 10:05:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13269168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unda/pseuds/Unda
Summary: In which a human man and several adult rebels find themselves detained at the Condesce's pleasure wherein they proceed to be highly ungrateful for their lodgings and minimal torture. Starring our glorious and almighty ruler. Contains one (1) misuse of cigarettes, one (1) impressive round of fisticuffs, abundant mangrit, multiple escape attempts, flagrant misuse of shaving cream, several accidental quadrant based solicitations and a general air of treason. Unsuitable for trolls 6 sweeps and under.(though seriously mind those warnings the in the tags people)





	Seven Nation Army

_I'm gonna fight 'em off_  
 _A seven nation army couldn't hold me back_  
 _They're gonna rip it off_  
 _Taking their time right behind my back_  
 _And I'm talkin' to myself at night_  
 _Because I can't forget_  
 _Back and forth_ through _my mind_  
 _Behind a cigarette_  
  
 _And the message comin' from my eyes says, "Leave it alone."_

 

Mind control is objectively the worst thing that you have ever experienced it, you had hoped that with Mindfang changing sides that you never would again. You won’t ever forgive her for all that she did, you can’t, for the sake of the children you will coexist but that is all. 

You would far rather be thrown in handcuffs and dragged to prison. Even in that situation you could fight, your heart would race with rage, you could snarl and swear. With mind control those choices are taken from you, you cannot grit your teeth out of displeasure or tense a muscle in resistance. You walk to your imprisonment with your hands limp at your sides and your expression placid. 

_ She _ rests a large clawed hand on your shoulder, cuffs your arms and throws you into a secure cell. A minion of hers, not a troll but something else, takes your entire sylladex along with all of your weapons. Only when the door is locked are you freed. You suck in an outraged breath, whirl around and snarl, baring your fangs to her. The bars of the cell gleam with the reflected light from your skin. 

“You  _ bitch _ ! When I get out of here I’ll rip your throat out with my teeth!” you snarl, flinging yourself at the bars. 

The tyrant who tried to execute your only son just smiles at you and laughs before walking away, her hair dragging on the floor. 

“Jegus Maryam, just get your rumblespheres out for her why don’t you?” Mindfang sneers from a cell further down the row. She is lucky that you cannot see her or reach her. 

“I do not want to hear a  _ word _ from you.” you snap. 

You pace back and forth, shuddering at the sensation of being so out of control and desperate to do anything to reassert the idea that you are the one in control of your own body now. Just you. 

“Excuse me, miss?” a voice asks, a man’s voice. 

You turn and stare at the man in the cell opposite yours. He’s a human man, uncuffed and smaller than you. Of course most humans are smaller than you. What is he doing here?

“Are you alright? It’s not so bad in these cells but I think we have to stay until this ship lands. It’ll be alright." He assures you. 

It’s like a slap in the face, a pale overture like that but then you remember that he’s human. Your daughters have told you all about humans and their pale freedom, how they share concern with each other in entirely inappropriate ways as a matter of course. Kanaya has to deal with her soulmate showing both red and pale to her all of the time and the things Signless has told you about his work, well. 

“Who are you?” you ask. You realise that your eyes are watering, you’re not crying, you’re not. You twist your head to wipe your cheeks on your shoulders. 

“Jean Egbert, miss." He offers and takes off his hat briefly. 

Egbert… that was the name of one of the human boys, wasn’t it? Kanaya mentioned him, you think. 

“I think our children know each other.” you say slowly. 

“Ah, yes. I have a girl, Jane and a boy, John." He explains. Yes, you do know those names. 

You step closer to the bars and the man smiles at you softly you cannot see anyone else in the row of his cells though the solid wall dividing your cell from the one next to it obstructs your view. 

“Is there anyone else here aside from us and her down there?” you ask, jerking your head in Mindfang’s direction. You hear her disapproving tut at your mention of her. 

“Just the three of us as far as I’ve seen.” Jean answers you. He leans on the bars of his cell, his free hands dangling through. Obviously, a mere human man is not regarded as strong enough to break free of these bars. 

“Four of us.” you correct. The human looks surprised at your words. 

“My,” oh there is a human way of explaining this, think of it, “my son-in-law. I think that’s the term, he is one of my son’s partners. He has psionic powers, if this ship is flying then it is because  _ she _ has enslaved him to do it.” 

“Well then, when we have a chance to break out we must find him too before escaping.” Jean says firmly. 

Mindfang snorts derisively and you sigh. 

“I must admit that I don’t truly understand what’s happening here. There was this meteor and my house broke apart and I was trying to keep track of my children but then these little monsters dragged me off no matter how many I fought off. It’s been a strange day. I just hope my children are okay.” Jean admits unhappily. 

Children. 

Your throat catches around a lump and tears well up in your eyes. How many times had you defended your son when he was young? How many people had you killed in his defense? But you failed him once, he nearly died. You had thought him truly dead and he had thought the same of you. Only then you got the chance to be with him again but now it’s all been snatched away once more mere years later. You weren’t there but he was killed by rubble of all things. Disciple told you, she also told you that they had put his body into a sprite so he wasn’t gone but still was dead in a way. Once again you failed. 

“Miss?” the human asks softly. 

You’re crying. Embarrassment flushes your cheeks hot and you look away from him. 

“Sorry, excuse me. I just… my son died today, trying to protect his own son. It’s not really hit me until now.” you admit weakly. 

“Oh, oh, I’m so sorry.” He says sympathetically. 

“It was quick, I think. If he was alive and here he would no doubt be in great pain.” you tell him, knowing the truth of your words. The tyrant would torture him and she is skilled enough to make that a long and slow process. 

“But your… your grandson, is he alright?” Jean asks hopefully. 

“As far as I know my grandchildren are all okay, but I got captured very soon into coming here so that may not be the case now. Mituna still wasn’t in the game when I was caught so…” you trail off. There’s no point thinking about it, there’s nothing that you can do about it from here. If and when you get out then you can help but now you’re just torturing yourself to think on it. 

“I have to say that you don’t look old enough to have grandchildren, miss.” the man says after a moment, surprising you into a short laugh. 

“It’s Dolorosa, but call me Rosa. I’m… I think I need to sit down over there, get my head together.” you say gently and walk off to the corner of your cell. The human man nods and backs off to give you privacy. 

As the day passes the rest of the adults are rounded up and brought into the cells. The only one missing is Signless but at least if he’s a sprite then he is looking after the children. The human man talks to each of them as they are dragged into cells in varying levels of restraints. Despite knowing nothing about what is going on he seems optimistic about your chances. 

When evening rolls around a large carapaced man shuffles in with a tray of food and glares at all of you. He picks up a plate and tosses it into your cell, splattering grubsauce everywhere. 

“Sir, that is no way to treat a lady!” the human insists. 

“Oh, yea?” the carapace sneers and tosses a similar plate through the bars of his cell. It splatters on the wall and slides down. 

“Well, I feel I should return the favour.” the human says slowly and suddenly there’s something in his hand. It seems that no one emptied his sylladex when he came in. Only this is no weapon, instead it looks like a… pie of some kind. There is some sort of white frosting all over it. He reaches through the bars of his cell and smashes it into the face of the large slick skinned man. It slides off of his face and down to the floor with a splat. 

Redglare barely stifles her laughter and The Summoner fails completely. 

“Perhaps you would be in a better mood if you enjoyed yourself more.” the human suggests airily. 

The carapacian flicks the white stuff of of his face, shoves the trolley of plates away and jams his key into the lock, opening it and entering the human’s cell. Your bloodpusher falters, the human is a good head or two shorter than the guard and he’s just a human. He’s going to-

Oh.

You watch in wide eyed surprise as the human punches the guard square in the face and then leaps up, wrapping his arm around the man’s neck and then repeatedly punches him in the head until he drops to the floor out cold. You never knew humans had such raw strength! The human quickly searches his conquest and comes up triumphant with keys. He rushes out of the door and over to yours, jamming the key in the lock. 

“I didn’t know humans could do that!” you gasp and he flashes you a smile. 

“We’re full of surprises." He assures you and slides the door to your cell open, quickly moving on to Redglare’s door. 

“HEY!” comes an angry yell from the door. Another carapacian is standing there, this one smaller than the first and closer in height to Jean himself. This one is wielding a gun. 

“Ah.” says the human slowly. 

“What’s going on here then? What happened to the brute?” the man demands. 

“Well,” the human says and you watch as two items drop out of his sylladex and into the hands that he has moved behind his back, a can of something and something small. “I hit him in the face a lot until he stopped moving.” 

The second guard stares at the human in shock. 

“I would suggest that you leave.” the human adds. This seems to shake the carapacian man into action and he hefts his gun up and points it at Jean. 

A few things happen very quickly. The human man lunges forward, skidding on his knees. The small thing in his hand is a match and as he slides on his knees it catches alight on the ground. He then holds up the can in his other hand and sprays it directly at the carapacian through the lit match. The whole thing catches alight and soon sticky burning death is raining down on the second guard. 

The carapacian screams and rushes blindly away, stumbling against the doorframe and walls. Jean leaps to his feet again and starts hurriedly unlocking doors. He could just leave you all behind but he’s not, he’s helping all of you. You manage to climb in such a way that you get your handcuffs to the front of you but you cannot manage to pull them apart. Fine, you’ll just have to survive cuffed until you can get a key or have someone set you free, perhaps there’s even a key to your cuffs on that set that the human has. That Jean has. 

You step out of your cell and eye your fellow trolls who are also free now. 

“We need to find the helmscolumn.” you insist. 

“I can find it.” the Summoner assures you. 

You hear something behind you, footsteps and jangling metal. You whirl around in time to see your greatest enemy standing in a cloud of black hair, more than filling the doorway. 

Your body freezes, you can only just keep breathing. Anything else is far beyond your capabilities. Behind you the sound of a key in locks continues. 

“Come on, we need to go!” Jean insists, but no one moves. No one can. 

“What… oh. It’s  _ you _ .” Jean says, loathing evident in his voice. 

“Always the troublemaker, Jean.” the bitch snickers, ducking under the doorway. 

“Maybe if you weren’t always against everything that’s right this wouldn’t be a problem.” the human snaps back. 

“Why you gotta be so glubbin’ mean? We’re supposed to be a  _ family _ , Jean." She cackles, ducking under the doorway. 

Family? What is she talking about? 

“You’re no family of mine,  _ Betty _ .” Jean retorts. What is going on?

“I’m shore my grandchildren will be very surprised to hear that, no matter how much you tried to keep them yours." She tuts. 

“Jane tore your company apart, you know. I didn’t have anything to do with it, she did it. I couldn’t be more proud. She’s nothing like you.” Jean snarls. It’s a real snarl too, not like a troll one of course but it’s feral all the same. 

“I can fix that.” She says lowly. 

“STAY AWAY FROM MY CHILDREN!” Jean roars and flings himself past you, launching himself at a woman almost three times his height and probably hundreds of times his age. She bats him out of the air with one large hand and pins him to the floor, the rest of you remain frozen, her control over you doesn’t waver at all. Jean struggles and actually manages to bend one of her fingers back. That’s enough for her to let him go with her hand and pin him with her stolen psionics. 

The Tyrant stands up, flicking her curtain of hair over her shoulder. She narrows her eyes at all of you and as one you all mechanically step back into your cells and the doors slam shut after each of you. She whirls around in place and strides off, dragging Jean across the floor with her mind. 

“He was so brave.” Disciple says finally, her voice sad. You nod, no doubt the man will shortly be executed for his resistance. 

“What was all that about family?” Mindfang wonders. No one has an answer for that and so you all return to sitting down and waiting for an idea to come to you about escaping. The carapacians leave as well, the only sign they were there ever is splattered food and burnt foam.

You’re just on the cusp of sleep when two of the carapacians walk into the cell block dragging an unconscious Jean between them. They walk him into his cell and drop him gracelessly onto the floor. They then lock the door behind him and leave.

You shuffle over to the bars and sniff intently at the air you can smell the iron tang of human blood, so he’s injured for sure. His shirt is ripped in parts, the arm is torn off but still on his arm so you can see a sliver of bare shoulder and black inked skin under it. His soulmate must be dead, which given that the Earth was destroyed and he may well be the last adult human alive that is not surprising.

“Jean?” you call out, but he doesn’t move. 

When you awake the next day he is awake and somehow in clean clothes again, he’s propped up against the wall and shaving by feel with a wet razor. When he sees you watching he smiles. 

“We’ll get out of here, don’t worry." He assures you, as if he’s not the one with bruises on his neck and jaw. 

Over the next week there are two more fire based shaving foam incidents before the carapacians take away his matches, they leave the foam to mock him. Perplexingly they also leave his razor, if only because the man reacts with horror at the thought of using it as a weapon and has never tried to. 

He manages to coax everyone into talking about their kids and happily talks about his own as well. You discover that his daughter is the other soulmate of your grandson Sollux’s soulmate. He encourages people to talk about times when they’ve escaped sticky situations before to boost morale. He talks to Disciple about the movies they’ve both seen and encourages Mindfang and Summoner to regale him with tales of each of their adventures. 

Jean is even pleasant to the guards when they show up, asking about how  _ she _ treats them. He is… absurd. Cheerful and hopeful in a way he has no right to be and only strong and violent in random bursts. Even among the humans you have met in the past he is by far the oddest yet. 

Every so often the monster calls him to her and each time he comes back battered but defiant. A few weeks in you are forced to walk there with him. 

“Listen, chap, I know we got off on the wrong foot but I don’t suppose you could light me a smoke, could you? Not my pipe of course, that’s too much hassle but I have cigarettes but you have my matches, see?” Jean asks congenially as one of the guards frogmarches him to the royal chamber.

“Why should I?” the man sneers. 

“Wouldn’t you want a smoke if you had to put up with her?” Jean chuckles. 

The carapace laughs as well and seemingly amused enough to comply he takes the cigarette from the man’s inventory and puts it between Jean’s lips and lights it. Jean can’t do it himself because by now the carapacians have taken to cuffing him whenever they can. He stows the contraband matches away instantly and continues leading you both in. 

The door opens, you’re both led in and Jean sighs out of his nose and twin plumes of smoke curl out of his nose. 

“You know I hate that smell.”  _ She _ sneers. 

Jean seems to consider this for a moment and then sucks the biggest breath that he can in and then shifts the cigarette to one side of his mouth so he can blow a directed and spiteful plume of smoke at  _ her _ . 

“Put that fin out.” the monster orders. Jean scowls and then shrugs. 

“Terribly sorry about this old boy, nothing personal you understand.” Jean says quietly. 

Before you or the carapacian man can question his strange statement he lunges at the man and jams his cigarette straight into the man’s eye who promptly falls to the ground screaming. Jean then leaps up in the air, hops his handcuffs and then with a mighty heave of his muscles snaps them apart. He dashes to the wall and grabs a trident, twisting and hurling it at the tyrant as he takes off sprinting in the same direction. 

The beast raises an eyebrow and stops both Jean and the trident in thin air with barely any trace of effort. 

“Creative." She laughs. 

Jean floats upside down in the air and glares at her, when he’s close enough he blows a plume of smoke in her face. The tyrant coughs in surprise and you watch puffs of it come out of her gills. She drops Jean and the trident on the ground for a second as she hacks up what you hope will be a lung. He grabs the trident but before he can lift it she flings him against the back wall. 

“Tell me what you know about the human children." She demands but he just stares at her defiantly. 

“I want to know if they will do what I ask." She continues and you snarl in anger. It’s not as if you had thought that she was above hurting children but it still makes you furious. She shakes her head and looks at you now. 

“You see, Porrim,” She says, using your hatch name and not your title. “Humans are a very interesting species.” 

You don’t answer, you don’t want to give her the satisfaction. 

“They’re strong, not physically although Jean here is unbelievabubbly strong for a human, but their bonds. You sea he hates me." She laughs, pointing a finger at him and skidding him a little further up the wall. Jean grits his teeth and struggles but to no avail.

“I know the feeling.” you growl. 

“When it comes to torturing them, and I have, they’ll tell you almost anyfin so easy. When we got first contact I learnt so much about their planet but oh buoy, get one with a wriggler of their own, and they won’t shell ‘em out no matter what you do. He won’t tell me a lick about those kids." She sighs.

She obviously wants you to ask her why she’s doing this. She’s like a purrbeast toying with its food, you won’t indulge her. You remain pointedly silent.

“But it’s a weakness too, most strengths are. The same applies to trolls too, for shore. My helmsman is one of the most powerful psionics to ever live and that’s why he’s back where he belongs. Strength, weakness." She cackles and you snarl at her. You’ve spoken with Psii about his time as her helmsman, seen the haunted look he gets. The thought that you’re being held in the air with this ship on the power of his suffering is enough to make you want to retch. 

“So I put you all in with him. So here goes, Jean. I just want to know if they’ll cooperate with me, not gonna hurt them, I need ‘em alive to win. So tell me if they’ll do what I say or…" She trails off and your mind is locked out of your body. 

Your body bends down and picks up the fallen trident, the inner prongs are bladelike. 

“She’s a rainbow drinker, Jean. She’ll stay alive for a long time. I can control her like I can’t do with humans, she’s like a toy. And I’m going to make this toy disassemble itself unless you shell me what I want to know.” the monster purrs smugly. 

For some reason she’s allowed you control over your eyes and so you can look from Jean’s horrified expression to your own hand as you are made to raise your other hand to the bladed prong. 

“She’s nothing to do with this!” Jean tries but the thing controlling your brain just laughs. 

Your finger is pressed to the blade, the middle finger at the first knuckle. 

“Please.” Jean pleads. Your bloodpusher lurches and your mind flows to sewing days with your girls filled with tea, laughter and love. But without fingers...

“Begging always wash a good sound on you, for my daughter and then your children. But you know it won’t turn the tides.” She says mockingly. 

Your finger presses harder and blood wells over the blade, and your breath hitches with the pain. You don’t want him to tell her about the children. You can do without a finger, you’ve seen people with far more complex prosthetics. You can get a new finger or a new hand but you can’t replace children. 

“Stop! The humans… they’ll cooperate if it means saving us but I don’t know the troll children. Please leave her.” Jean says quickly. 

Your hands stop moving and the monster, the beat, the wretch that ruined so much leans over and rests her arms on your still frozen shoulders. 

“You see? Humans. Jack Noir, stop your whining and take these two sea squirts back to their cells!” She barks out. Jack Noir hisses and rolls onto his knees with a full body shudder and one hand clutched over his eye. He stands up and glares at both of you. 

“His cuffs.” the carapacian says, pointing to the unrestrained Jean. 

“He’ll coral himself. If he puts up a fight or behaves at all badly stab her.” The tyrant commands, pointing at you. The man’s mouth splits into a sharp toothed smile and Jean steps between him and you. 

“Leave her out of this.” Jean insists, as if he wasn’t so much smaller than you and like you haven’t chewed up guys like this Noir for breakfast. He waves a knife at the pair of you and you both leave, walking back in silence. You’re grateful that the carapacian seems more interested in nursing his eye than he does in stabbing either of you. 

You’re shoved into your respective cells and Jean does nothing more than quietly apologise and sit himself down on the floor. He doesn’t talk to the others for once, he just sits there. 

“What happened?” Redglare asks you from several cells down. 

“She wants something from the children, she wanted to know if they’d cooperate.” you explain. There is a grim silence among your fellow trolls that suggests that cooperate or not any interaction with the seadweller will not end well for them. 

“I have a question for you, human man.” Redglare says eventually. 

“Jean." He says flatly, resting his head against the wall with his eyes shut. 

“Jean, the Condesce acts like she knows you and you act like you know her. She even called you her son-in-law which I assumed was some joke I missed because her descendants are both very young and it’s not like normal Alternian trolls have ‘children’ anyway.” Redglare points out and you bristle a bit. Signless was… is your son and you’re an Alternian troll!

Jean sighs and slides a little further down the wall of his cell. 

“She is my mother-in-law." He admits unhappily. 

“How is that possible?” you ask. 

Jean looks over at you regretfully and for a moment you think he won’t answer but slowly he begins to talk. 

“You probably know that she tried to invade Earth once, yes?" He asks. You all agree, you’ve all heard of how a number of humans were captured and proved just how insane they all are making the tyrant rethink her plans of invasion for the first time ever. It’s the whole reason that Kanaya could never stay on Alternia with a soulmark, people were afraid of humans. 

“Well, it happened when I was a teenager. A thousand humans were taken, whisked off into space for six months. It was the first we knew of life outside our planet and here it was taking our people. They came back of course but not everyone did. The numbers were hazy. Some were killed by trolls, a few in the landing. Bodies were unaccounted for. Not all one thousand returned. My soulmate was on that ship.” Jean explains. 

That doesn’t explain his relationship to  _ her _ , though. And despite the fact that he has paused you guess that his story is not finished. His fingers worry at the blacked out band on the finger of one hand. 

“Her name was June, in all of the commotion of the revolt and the Condesce’s escape no one noticed that she was missing. She didn’t make it back with the main ship, she was still captive.” Jean explains. 

Your bloodpusher aches, it is reasonable to assume that his soulmate was the same age as him. She was a lone teenage girl stuck with that monster with no way of fighting back or getting home. 

“She can’t… do that thing that she does to you, the control thing, not to us. At best she can put some of us to sleep but some people like me have a resistance to even that.” Jean continues. 

“Yeah, your brains are wired differently. I can’t do it either but I can…” Mindfang trails off.

“We do not need a demonstration.” you say hastily, you require no reminder of just what Mindfang can do with her control. 

“My Mother-In-Law is nothing if not persistent. She had tried controlling the humans when she had more but with unlimited access to June she realised that you can do something better with humans. You can… change how we think, make us believe things that aren’t true. A lot of how we see things is to do with our culture, and that’s just ideas that spread. She needed to change our culture but we’d never accept it from her, but if she had a human doing her bidding…” Jean shakes his head. 

“She used June as her representative.” you guess. 

“More than that. She convinced June that she was her mother, that she wasn’t an alien at all. They set up a company, a baking company. They got people who cared more about money than doing right to manage it and she started her plan to take over the Earth from inside." He continues. 

“But how can you do that?” Mindfang asks. 

“I’ve seen it in humans before.” Redglare says solemnly. 

“People who have been hurt, rescued from cults or in awful situations. They believe something that’s obviously wrong because it’s safer than the truth. Isn’t it nicer to think that your mother is just tall and angry and not an alien who kidnapped you?” Redglare says sadly. 

“They actually buy that even when the proof is right in front of their noses?” Mindfang asks in bafflement. Redglare makes an uncertain noise, as if even she can’t determine what these people really think. 

“Sometimes June seemed to not know what was going on and believed it and sometimes I’m sure she knew but was just pretending to keep  _ her _ placated.” Jean adds. 

You all think grimly on that for a moment. Trolls can be driven crazy of course, Mindfang nearly drove you there, but you don’t think trolls can delude themselves that much and still function normally the rest of the time. The closest would be people staying in awful relationships convinced they can fix things but that’s more love blinded by optimism not this apparent insanity. A stupid person might point out that the Grand Highblood was ‘functional’ but given that he routinely painted with the blood of people who failed to amuse him and killed more advisors than is reasonable for entirely imagined offences suggests otherwise. Plus there was that rumour that he sometimes ate people and not always  _ after _ killing them. That’s not really functioning. 

Jean continues talking in the silence that has stretched out.  

“I met June when I was twenty at a county fair, she was perfect. She was my soulmate of course she… well, needless to say her ‘mother’ wasn’t pleased. But she knew no one would believe me if I tried to tell people about her but getting rid of me might break her hold on June, it was a stalemate. I tried to get June to see things as they were and resist and my Mother-In-Law tried to keep her under control. It only got more complicated when we had children and June died when my youngest came along. She got her claws into Jane too, for a while. Even when she was back at your planet looking after things she had set everything in the company up to move on without her.” Jean says with a shake of his head. 

“Jean, am I correct in thinking that your soulmate died? Or did I mishear you?” Mindfang asks and you catch the way that the human winces. 

“Yes, she’s… it’s been a long time. She died thirteen years ago.” Jean explains. 

“I thought humans died when their soulmates died.” Mindfang says slowly. 

“Mindfang!” Disciple scolds her, “You’ve lived on Earth for years, you should know that’s not true! Not to mention it’s a pretty cruel thing to say to him!” 

“Yeah, seriously don’t you watch Earth TV?” Redglare snorts. 

“Earth TV is boring compared to Alternian TV, I watch our shows and movies not theirs.” Mindfang sneers. 

“Sometimes you die when your soulmate does, the shock kills some people. Mostly it just feels like dying but it lasts for years and then…” Jean shrugs and trails off. You don’t know how humans do it. Seeing Signless hurt and nearly killed almost destroyed you but that was a bond you chose to have, they’re just shackled to another person for life without any say in the matter. At least when trolls get into relationships they have the freedom of choosing them. 

No one else seems especially willing to probe more on the topic of his dead soulmate and none of you have human soulmates that you can compare his feelings to. But he risked a lot to save you dismembering yourself, you should really try to move the conversation on to something else. 

“So… she hates you as much as she hates us.” you say instead.

“Well," He says putting his somewhat crumpled hat back on his head, “I don’t know how much she hates you.”

He’s smiling slightly, it’s a sad thing but it’s there. He’s clearly worried for his children as you all are for your own. He was never part of the rebellion but you’re pretty sure he gets an honorary place. The least you could do is help distract him from his pain. 

“I wonder which of us here she hates the most.” you say airily. As you predicted Mindfang leaps in telling her story and bragging about her own life, then others join in until you’re all laughing about how each one of you has, in some way, royally pissed off the royalty on this ship. You don’t think anyone here regrets it either.  

The two of you talk about your children, you compare stories of Signless as a small child to Jean’s stories of Jane and John. It seems like some things about caring for a child are the same across species. Disciple shares your pains about all of her kids getting into anything and everything that they shouldn’t when they were little. Apparently when she was newly molted Nepeta snuck out of the bath, got into the food cupboard and ate half a jar of maple syrup before ending up on a sugar high, drenching herself in the stuff and running out into the front garden completely naked. Mituna and Sollux’s childhoods were rife with psionic accidents, sneezing and flinging something at a wall.

Despite living on Earth for years now you still don’t engage with many humans. Of course you see Rose Lalonde plenty but she is still just a child. You have no adult human friends, some acquaintances that you know through the community centre of course but not friends. You would call Jean a friend now. Whenever he tries to escape which he does almost daily he always tries to take the rest of you with him. He thoughtfully listens to escape ideas that Mindfang and Redglare cook up but makes sure that no one gets left behind. 

He’s not patronising when he tries to break you out, acting like you can’t defend yourself or something. But he simply refuses to abandon you to a fight alone. When you get controlled again he sits quietly and waits for you to come back to yourself again and then tries to distract you, his care and consideration is almost pale but you’re sure he doesn’t mean it like that. When you ask him about why he acts the way he does he gives the strangest answer. 

“A gentleman wouldn’t leave a lady behind, especially if she doesn’t have her chainsaw. It’s just not proper." He says, puffing his chest out as he says it. You ask if it’s a gender thing, would he leave the Summoner behind? Jean looks horrified at the idea. 

“Of course not, you don’t leave another fellow behind. We all have to stick together.” 

And that’s that. This strange, overly friendly, polite human man who is easily the youngest of all of you has determined himself to be a pack member of all of you. You’re all apparently honorary humans to him. 

The Batterwitch, a name you picked up from Jean that suits her well, tries to fork Mindfang through the chest one day and Jean leaps for her and jams a tie pin in her gills and with no other weapons available to him he punches her in the ear fin too. She leaves Mindfang alone and instead she smacks him back into his cell with her trident and he hits the wall hard and slides down it. 

He doesn’t wake up for a day and all of you are worried sick about him until he stirs. It seems that humanity really is contagious. But you’re okay with that, after all, the last humans the Batterwitch captured escaped so you’re going to do the same. 


End file.
